The Blog

Sleep - May 09, 2017

When Darkness Makes a Difference

For a significant portion of human history, people didn’t have to look for darkness. With the introduction of electricity, the relationship between people and light became much more complicated. The advent of ever-present artificial light, along with the popularity of digital technology with its light emitting screens, pose serious challenges and disruptions to our quality of rest.

Light is critical to our body’s internal “sleep clock,” or circadian rhythm. Exposure to light early in the morning wakes our minds and bodies up, encouraging alertness and energy. This scenario becomes troublesome when we encounter light exposure at night. Instead of preparing to drift into a natural sleep cycle, our bodies stay alerted longer than they should, making it tough for us to achieve a healthy, restful, refreshing sleep.

How can we create a more sleep-friendly environment during the evening? It all starts in the bedroom. Managing the level of light in your bedroom is critical to creating a healthy sleep environment.

Here are a number of steps you can take to make your bedroom a natural setting for sleep:

● Create a sleep routine by dimming the lights in your bedroom an hour before going to sleep to stimulate the body’s physiological progression toward sleep. Dimmer switches or low-watt light bulbs can be a great help here.

● Turn off all electronics, from iPads to cell phones to televisions, at least an hour before bedtime. The light in digital devices is called blue light, a wavelength of light that research has found to be very damaging to sleep quality.

● Use a nightlight with a red bulb if you must have a light source in your room at night. Unlike blue light, red light is on a wavelength that is far less disruptive to sleep.

● Hang blackout curtains in the bedroom to entirely block all outside light from entering the room. Even slivers of light can negatively affect your sleep cycle.

● Wear an eye mask to deepen the darkness in your bedroom and shut out intrusive light.

Aside from these helpful tips, your Privacy Pop is a perfect method to develop and maintain the darkness necessary to promote the best possible sleep for your body. The personal zone that the Privacy Pop offers its owners security in a darkened, enclosed, private space, the ideal environment for a good night’s sleep.